Compelling Conversations

Dr. Matthew Desmond

The Compelling Conversation with Dr. Matthew Desmond scheduled for Thursday, March 8, 2018 has been canceled due to the weather.

Sociologist Matthew Desmond is the author of New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. In 2015, Desmond was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant for “revealing the impact of eviction on the lives of the urban poor and its role in perpetuating racial and economic inequality.” His landmark work Evicted tells the stories of eight families living on the edge and the landlords who control their fate. Desmond will transform our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation (unfair or inadequate pay for work) while providing fresh ideas for solving one of the most urgent issues facing America today - housing insecurity.

“If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out.”